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Season 2, Episode 3

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Leading in Conversation
Leading in Conversation
Leading in Conversation, Season 2 Episode 3
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Shownotes

Ralph Stacey Matrix

Leadership Centre graph

see: https://www.leadershipcentre.org.uk/artofchangemaking/theory/complexity/

transcript


Kate: Hello! And welcome to “Leading in Conversation”. We are going to try something a little bit new today, aren’t we, Nelis?

Nelis: Yes, we are, and it is quite a challenge, because I have no idea where we’re going to end up. We are going to explore verbally, just chat about this topic without exactly knowing where we’re going to land.

Kate: So this is a little Christmas treat for you, something different. And we’ll see where it goes. So let me start out by explaining how this topic came about. I’ve been doing a leadership course recently and one of the things we looked at in our last residential was this matrix by Ralph Stacey. Now, it will probably help you to see this, and there are two ways you can do that. You can either visit our website leadinginconversation.net. Or you can Google “Stacey matrix”. We’re going to talk about the version of it that’s on our website. You will get slightly different versions if you Google, there are lots of different versions out there, but it will help you to be able to visualise it. Nelis. Why don’t you describe the matrix, first of all? 

Nelis: Yes, let’s describe it. And people who are just listening will still get the gist of it. So the matrix basically has two axes. So one is the level of certainty. Are you very certain or very close to certainty? Or are you very far from certainty?

Kate: And that’s along the bottom. The certainty axis is the horizontal.

Nelis: Yes, and then you’ve got the vertical axis which is about agreement. Are we close to agreement? Does everybody basically have the same opinion about it? Or is it far from agreement? Are there a lot of different opinions around it? And people go in every direction about what the solution actually is. So when you visualise that, certainty versus agreement, when you are in the bottom left area where most people agree, and most people are pretty certain about what’s going to happen. Then you are in the zone of control, and that’s indicated as the “Control” zone where you just need to do a good job in executing. When you get into the region where that is much less the case, the whole middle area, that is the area where it’s complex. where agreement is not a given, the outcomes are not a given, and you’ve got to work together to find ways forward. And that is described as the area where you want to convene. Now, there’s also a third area, and, Kate, why don’t you describe that?

Kate: First of all, I’m going to say, you what we’ve been talking about in this podcast – Conversational leadership – is what you do in that central zone where it’s complex when there’s not total agreement, not total certainty. Things are complex, not complicated, and various graphs, the charts that you’ll see online, have “complicated” between “control”, the control zone and the complex zone. But in that complex zone, in a sense that’s what we’ve been talking about, how to convene, how to gather people together to get input, the diversity, hearing from all voices. Because when you’re not certain, and when you don’t agree, it’s really good to get together and discuss things. Now, I was all very happy looking at this chart and thinking, “Yeah, that’s where we are. That’s where we do convening, conversational leadership”. But then, if you go further up diagonally up towards the top right corner, you enter what’s called the chaotic zone and this is what caught my attention recently, because I have been sensing chaos in our work. We have been in a complex zone for a long time, and are getting probably quite comfortable with living there, with medium amounts of agreement and certainty. But it seems in our work particularly right now, we are entering into this space where there is not a lot of agreement, and there’s not a lot of certainty about things. And I wonder if that resonates with other people, as well. In the world around us things are happening so quickly. Things are emerging that we don’t know much about, like AI, is changing the world of work, the world for all of us. We’re not necessarily in agreement on how to use it. We don’t really know how to use it, and things are changing all the time. So keeping on top of that chaos in that chaotic zone. And the leadership approach that Stacey recommends for that zone is called “sense and act”. So you have “execution” in the bottom left corner, you have “convening” in the middle and you have “sensing and acting” in the top right.

Nelis: Yes. and we want to explore that area today because it goes against what we’ve been talking about for the last two years. And sometimes you need that. And it’s good to challenge ourselves. How do you act in a place where agreement is just not going to be possible. You can convene all you want but people are going to go in every direction. The polarisation is so strong that convening won’t be enough and the outcomes are so uncertain that you can talk all you want, but you’re not going to get to a place where everybody’s reasonably comfortable, that this is the right direction. And that is this zone of chaos, that as an organisation you want to avoid getting into, but sometimes you can’t. But it’s also the place where new things happen. It actually can be an exciting place.

Kate: Yes, so actually, on the version of Stacey’s matrix that we’re using, the space between complexity and chaos is called the zone of innovation. And if you’ve done any reading about complexity science, the edge of chaos is where there is great productivity, novelty emerges. And we won’t go into that in any depth now but that’s where innovation happens and happens well. If you try to innovate in the control zone it’s not going to work. You’ve got to be on the edge of chaos for it to have the right environment for new things to emerge.

Nelis: And there’s another version of this model which the Leadership Center has brought out, which, as the first part of that area, says “saying yes to the mess, experiments, uncertainty”. And I find that interesting. So to what extent are we, as organisations, able to say yes to the mess? And how do you deal with that? What kind of leadership is needed in the mess? And I find that a quite invigorating kind of topic to say, “Okay, what does that mean?” And how do you avoid becoming too sort of dictatorial because somebody will need to make decisions, and there’s no agreement. How do you then have healthy leadership patterns in that zone?

Kate: And I think that the version of Stacey’s matrix that the Leadership Center has put out is really helpful, actually Nelis. Maybe we’ll put that onto the website as well. It contrasts the bottom left corner which it calls “ordinary management”. It’s where, it’s that technical rational decision making simple structures, effective procedures, monitoring coordination, providing direction. It’s all the things we’ve set up over the years to make a business or organisation funtion well. And that’s fine when you’re close to agreement and near to certainty. But when you’re in the top right, far from agreement, far from certainty, they describe it as, that’s when leadership is necessary, or “extraordinary management”. Ordinary management won’t suffice when you’re in that top right space, and I think they merge complexity and chaos there more than we would. But, as Nelis said, they list things like “saying yes to the mess, experiments, uncertainty, encouraging connectivity, conversation, building networks”. I think that’s all things that we’ve talked about as part of conversational leadership. But then those adaptive issues, wicked issues, that are the ones that you can’t just rely on your ordinary proven approaches to solve. You have to find different solutions and bring different people in to try and work out what they are. An interesting one listed there also is challenging habits and assumptions and containing anxiety. Nelis, what does it feel like in the chaotic zone? We’re kind of entering it a little bit. Which is why this resonated with us. And we decided, “Hey, let’s do a podcast talking about it”.

Nelis: Yes. anxiety is a good word there. And the interesting part of that is you need to contain it as a leader in order to not communicate angst to your followers, because if there is, if your leaders are giving a sense that they’re lost, total chaos emerges. And so how do you enter into the chaotic zone while… and as a leader feel anxious and and still communicate a sense of control or a sense of yeah, being on top of things. Trust is key. So personally, I resonate with a sense of anxiety. I have no idea where it’s going to go, and sometimes it feels quite overwhelming, because there’s so many things coming at you at the same time. We’re talking about our partnership environment. We’re talking about technical developments in the whole AI space, the whole area where we’re working in is changing dramatically. Our financial models are starting to fall apart or need to be replaced. All of those things. 

Kate: There are a lot of new new partners emerging, new players in the field and we’re trying to figure out, “Well, okay, how do we fit here?”.

Nelis: And in some ways that is complex. But it gets into this area of chaos where there’s so much uncertainty, so much disagreement, that you’ve got people going all directions at the same time. And for me as a leader, it is that sense of “I have no idea where it is going to go”. At the same time holding on to certain key beliefs. And I think that is key in that. So you’ve got that sense of uncertainty. You’re not sure yourself. You certainly disagree with a lot of others about it. But at the same time that is when you need to hold on to what you really believe in, and that’s spiritually, but also practically, what are your core values? And anchor your actions and your sensing on that. And I think that is one of the things that comes to mind for me primarily. I don’t know. How do you feel about that?

Kate: You know that I don’t do well with chaos and disorder! I think those who work with me will know that they’ve seen me…Holding anxiety is not one of my gifts. I think you do it quite well. But I’m a very expressive person. I’m a very emotional person. What I feel is usually very apparent to other people. So this is an area I need to grow in if chaos is going to be somewhere where we’re living a lot more. Let’s talk about sensing and acting. I’m very comfortable with convening now. Executing, fine. Sensing and acting to me sounds a little bit contrary to some of the stuff we’ve been stressing about convening. You know, you get the right people in the room. You get diversity. Everyone has wisdom. Does that all go out the window, do you think, when we’re in this corner where Stacey’s saying, we need to sense and act? What does that mean to you?

Nelis: And that’s where we get into the unpredictability of even this podcast because…

Kate: We’re in the chaos zone.

Nelis: This is a chaotic podcast! I think the key here is in some ways bringing those two things close together. You can’t get agreement in the sense of what you normally do in the convening zone. Looking for ways to move forward with the highest level of buy-in you can possibly get. But there is still a need to get the wisdom from more than one person, because sensing to me is not just an individual thing. It’s not about me sensing as a leader and just doing it. The systems that we talked about in all of the other podcasts, the wisdom of the group, bringing in new ideas, new perspectives. That’s still going to be important, 

Kate: …hearing from all parts of the system. 

Nelis: Exactly. So the challenge is, of course, that the changes are often so fast that you can’t do it. You can’t expect the same outcome of full agreement, but you still need to pattern your response on the same kind of ideas. And that’s why I think the merging of the two is not bad. It gives you tools.

Kate: So maybe it will help us if we contrast sensing with knowing. And that’s when you don’t have the certainty. We don’t know, necessarily, what the right response is going to be to the next decision we have to make. Say, on the situation we’re facing currently, we can’t know exactly but what does it mean to sense? There’s a tentativeness, isn’t there? There’s a – and I like how you said – bringing those two closer together. Sensing and acting, experimentation: “Well, let’s probe. Let’s take a step in this direction. See what happens. Okay. That’s not going to work. Take a step back. Let’s try another”. I don’t know, I’m just exploring, obviously. We always say to each other, “I’m verbally processing right now”. And that is totally what we’re doing here. 

Nelis: Yes, and I love that.

Kate: And we’re not feeling anxious at all, are we?

Nelis: But I think it actually touches on something that I think is important. We have enough trust, and we have enough patterns to fall back on in our podcast, trust between us. Key things are in place that allow us…

Kate: We have signals that we use when we want to speak, when I want to tell you you’ve gone on for too long. 

Nelis: Exactly.

Kate: We have a history. We have patterns. We have expectations of how this is going to go.

Nelis: And that allows us to go into that chaotic zone with some sense of trust that will go well. It’ll all be well. And I think that organizationally actually works as well. If there is enough trust in leadership, if you have patterns of convening and sharing with people sometimes, when that’s not possible, you’ve got to make snap decisions. You can’t come to agreement. You have a leader who basically is going to say, we’re going to do those three experiments. And I’ve got no idea whether any of them will work. There is enough trust in the system , enough patterns to fall back on that you’re okay. And I think that is going to be key. So trust, relationships, are still going to be absolutely important.

Kate: I think that’s a really key point. But how can we prepare ourselves? Just as we were preparing for this podcast, we were talking about borrowing from other domains such as crisis response. We talked about how people working in crisis response, in medical emergency response, have scenarios, they have templates, they’ve prepared for different scenarios. And I’m not sure that we could actually do that. But, knowing your systems well enough that you can actually improvise, thinking through what are the kind of crises that we could anticipate. And I think we’ve done that a little bit in the past, around issues that come up, we might have media exposure coming. We’ll prepare press releases, we’ll make sure we know who our spokespeople are in those scenarios, and who our spokespeople are not. And you know, those are some chaotic scenarios that we have prepared for in the past. 

Nelis: Yes, and I think that what you started saying here is really important. So when you look at crisis response, the three Ps that you’re referring to – plan, prepare, and practice – still apply. So you don’t know what the situation is going to be, it’s completely chaotic. The unpredictability is the norm in some ways. At the same time, if you have a foundation of elements that you are agreed on, you sort of deconstruct it. What do we agree on, and what are we ready to do? What are we ready to practise? So that when the chaos ensues we’re ready to deal with that. I find that a really helpful concept. Because at the higher level, to reiterate what we do believe in, the kind of leadership we want to provide. Having the practice of quickly convening on the things we can convene on is going to be key to actually survive. And that preparedness, the sense of having practised that, having done that enough, having planned for the unplannable, I think, is going to be really helpful when you enter into that zone of chaos.

Kate: I think, looking back at the pandemic is quite interesting, because that was chaotic at the beginning. We had to pivot very quickly on a number of things and because we had already practised convening quite a lot, because we had already moved into hybrid events, into

Zoom meetings, I think we were able to pivot a lot more quickly than other people.

and I think that relational foundation of trust that we’d spent quite a long time building…

Our relationships were good at that point, and I think when the chaos hit, I think that helped us to move quite swiftly. For example, pivoting our international conference in 6 weeks from an in person meeting in April, to a hybrid event. No, not hybrid, to a completely online event.

Nelis: Yes, I love that, what you’re saying about relationships. And often we equate relationship with agreement. And I think they’re completely different things. And so you can have complete disagreement, but have really strong relationships. And I think that is going to be key to survive the chaotic zone well, because you are allowing yourself and the group to do the give and take when you disagree, because the relational foundations are in place. So I think that is, that’s actually as we’re talking, I realise how important that is to disconnect agreement from relationship.

Kate: That’s really interesting. And I know that you and our colleague Karsten, as fellow Dutch men, often say that you agree to disagree. That’s always been a good example to me of how you can be really good friends with someone, even if you disagree with them on a given matter. And I think, you know, the thing we have certainty on is that we are committed to the cause. We are committed to good relationships. We are committed to trust and seeking to understand and walk forward together.

Nelis: Yes. And I think that is another part of what we are discovering together as we talk about it. So in some ways you need to disentangle or analyse what is it that we have low certainty and low agreement on? And what is it that we actually have lots of agreement on? And what are we certain about? And pulling that apart and saying, yeah, it’s not everything. It probably is only certain things. And that allows you then to actually have a foundation of agreement, certainty, execution, that helps to survive the chaotic parts.

Kate: Yes, I really like that. I wonder if that’s something we need to do as a leadership team-  around this current situation that we’ve been discussing – is actually get together and state the things that we are certain about, the things we have agreement about and in a sense doing the planning and the preparation, putting that foundation in that, these are non-negotiables for us. In whichever of the multitude of ways this situation may unfold, here’s our sort of bedrock, these are the things we agree on. These are the things we’re committed to. And that will provide us a bit more certainty and agreement actually, from which to operate.

Nelis: Yes. And I think if you do that, you allow the trust to stay intact. And actually, if you disentangle what is chaotic and what is complex, you also continue to have the right kind of leadership approach, convening people, having the right kind of dialogue that shows people that you haven’t abandoned that. You are still committed to your principles. It’s just on certain things, something else is needed. 

Kate: And it’s really important to stress, I think, in a time of chaos and crisis, it’s important to stress those fundamentals, to reassert the things that we hold to as an organisation, our values, you know, our mission, our vision and say, “We’re still about this, even though all of this is changing. This is who we are. This is what we do. This is where we’re going”. And that’s part of holding the anxiety, is giving people that security and stability.

Nelis: Yes, because people need that. Because we had earlier in our conversation, some people like change, but I don’t think anyone loves chaos, and if you sort of contain that by showing, “Okay, this is the chaotic part. But here is what we do control. This is, yes, this is complex, but we have a handle on it”. You allow yourself to contain it and not give the impression that the whole world is falling apart. Which is what happens when people panic, they hone in so much on the not-knowing that it feels like everything is falling apart, which may not be the case actually.

Kate: And so as a leadership team, we need to do our planning, preparing our scenario planning, etc., so that we can lead confidently into the unknown, and yes, be there for our staff.

Nelis: Yes, and be able to have enough of that trust that you’re going to make the highly unpopular decisions that half the group disagrees with. Because you need to be able to do that.

Kate: Well, Nelis, I think that we have not only a plan for one of our future team meetings there, talking about this. I think we have a podcast.

Nelis: I think we do. One of the things we didn’t discuss is how speed relates all of that. 

Kate: Oh yes. Do you want to just talk about that before we wrap up?

Nelis: As I was looking at this whole matrix, I realised that speed is not one of the axes. And at the same time, when you think about chaos, speed is so much a factor in that, because change happens so quickly that you don’t have time to convene and decisions are needed now, and they change every two months. And that kind of situation. So it is interesting that a lack of certainty and lack of agreement sort of has as a by-product the speed of change, because things go in different directions very suddenly. So it’s just an interesting observation that when you get into that mode you also need to have, you need to be ready to turn on a dime, and do a quick turnaround, pivot very quickly. And again, I think that crisis preparedness helps you to also deal with the question of speed. And one of the things that I was thinking about is in the chaotic zone, do you actually have data to do sensing or is… if your data is always 3 or 6 months old, it may be completely irrelevant. So I think as a leader, you need to create systems – and that’s again planning and preparing and practising – that the data you have is actually up-to-date, so that you can make quick decisions.

Kate King: So I think that’s a wrap for today, Nelis.

Nelis: I agree. And I’m excited about this. Actually, there are more outcomes than I expected. It is actually quite actionable. We have some ideas that you can actually take into leading in chaos. And I hope that our listeners find this helpful as well.

Kate King: And just linking back to conversational leadership, I think what we’ve done today is, we started out with a topic, we started out with a kind of stimulus, this matrix from Ralph Stacey, and said, “Let’s have a conversation about this, and see where it goes”. And actually in building off each other and having no boundaries for the conversation, and just yeah, bouncing off each other’s ideas we’ve actually come up with some actionable steps for ourselves as a leadership team, which is kind of good, kind of shows…

Nelis: … that conversational leadership actually works!

Kate: Sometimes when we’re facing big new things like this, we just need to clear some space and say, let’s just talk, let’s have no limits on this, and let’s just brainstorm together. See where it goes. Thanks, Nelis. This was fun.

Nelis: Thank you, Kate. And I’m looking forward to our next one with, I think, a guest again.

Kate King:  Yes, we have a couple of guests lined up. So that’s going to be fun. Happy Christmas, and best wishes for the New Year to you all.

Episode 7

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Leading in Conversation
Leading in Conversation
Leading in Conversation – Episode 7
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Show notes

Barry Oshry, Seeing Systems

Transcript

Kate: Hello and welcome to another episode of Leading in Conversation. We’re really excited today to have another guest with us, a colleague of ours, Jason Griffiths. Thanks for coming along, Jason.

Jason: It’s great to join you Kate, thanks for inviting me.

Nelis: Jason, why don’t you start off with sharing a little bit of your background and why you’re interested in conversational leadership?

Jason: Thanks Nelis. Yeah, it’s been an interest I’ve had for a while, but it wasn’t until around 2018 that I was able to put a term on it, as I began to learn about conversational leadership. But prior to that, it was really an interest in allowing people to talk to one another. And I had this idea about teams, that a really important approach was that teams could work together, talking to one another to enable them to make good decisions and that teams should talk to other teams in the organisation. And that way we have better outcomes, better decisions, we can hear one another, things like that. So I was thinking in terms of teams. So it wasn’t until 2018 I heard the term conversational leadership and I thought “Wow! This is a term that captures the kinds of things I’ve been trying to do”.

Nelis: Is that for you just another term or does it actually shape your thinking?

Jason: Yeah, definitely, as I heard the term it really did help to shape the kind of initial aha moment, “Oh, this is a term to use for what I’ve been trying to achieve”. And then it begins to sharpen it to say, “Yeah, so what does a conversational way of leading actually look like in practice?” and I began to experiment more in that space.

Kate: What are some of the values in conversational leadership that appeal to you? What is it particularly that grabs you, resonates with you?

Jason: Yeah, I think that it’s this idea that you take time to hear each other. So you’re valuing other people, being able to set a space to hear other people. Also this idea that we actually co-create together in ways that we couldn’t imagine on our own. The added value of other people’s input just increases all the different nodes, adding in and we can increase all the possibilities from there. So that’s pretty exciting, that we’re not only doing something that helps people to feel valued but we’re doing something that actually makes our result better as well.

Kate: Absolutely. And we should add at this point, we didn’t give any introduction to Jason other than his name! Jason has been a senior leader in our organisation for many years, at the country level and now he oversees one of our global regions. How do you see conversational leadership contrasting with traditional models of leadership?

Jason: I guess it depends on your perception. You might be able to tell from my accent, but being Australian we’re fairly egalitarian, maybe like many others, you and others listening. So this idea of people being on the same level and sharing together is a cultural value that I grew up in as well. Finding ways of leadership that bring that kind of “we do it together” value has always been something I’ve tried to do. It’s part of how I’ve done leadership in the past, and so working in a way that kind of creates teams, because that way you’re bringing people together to lead together, that was very appealing to me. So that’s in each leadership situation I found myself in, the idea of inviting others to join a team, to do it together, was always really appealing. And so that led to, “So how do we do this kind of conversation as a team, how do we then talk to other teams that might be linked to ours?” and, so yeah, it’s part of the process. So I think the, the kind of leadership style where a leader might be expected to have all the answers or to have the right knowledge or skill set or the right whatever, to be able to meet all the needs that there are in leadership is just a fallacy, and so being able to access knowledge from people around us that are working in different contexts and have various realities that they’ve lived through, to be able to say “What do you think about this, and how does this situation look to you?” and give their insights, that’s just a much better way to do leadership. And that’s what conversational leadership can bring.

Nelis: It’s interesting, you say that culturally for you this is a really good match, but you’ve also led in much more hierarchical cultural contexts, both colleagues who are from a hierarchical culture or an overall environment where it’s different. How have you seen that play out in cross-cultural settings where the expectation is actually very different?

Jason: That’s a good question. I think in various cultures it will look quite different. I’ve found that conversation seems to be a common element. People talk to each other. They do it in different ways. So I think in a very hierarchical culture you probably wouldn’t find the boardroom where executives sit and decisions are being made, that’s less likely to be the place where there is free-flowing co-sharing, meaning-making conversation happening. In a hierarchical context that might not be it. But the conversations happen. It’s possible that they may happen a few days before or a few hours before, where people are having all these conversations to make meaning together, so that the decisions that come in that boardroom context would be the right decisions. And so I think they still happen, the conversations still take place. It’s just the process, the table setting, if you like, for how you invite those conversations might look a bit different in an egalitarian context versus a very hierarchical one.

Nelis: You talked about this interest of yours. It’s actually become so concrete you said that you want to do some research and writing about that. Can you share a bit more about that?

Jason: Part of my Masters research that I did  a couple of years ago, finished a couple of years ago, found that in many contexts in which I was doing research, people wanted to get together, they wanted to have their voices heard, they wanted to have ways of participating in creating the decisions that are made. It was just really interesting to see how people expressed that in their own words. And so that was another reason that I thought, I’ve been experiencing anyway. I didn’t ask people in the research about conversational leadership, that wasn’t the focus of that research but it came out from what people said… not the terminology, but the experience of wanting to make meaning together and to be heard and valued for what they had to share from their lived experience. And I thought, “Wow this is quite strong in what people want to do and share in an organisation”. So I was thinking more about that, what would I do next leading from that, and conversational leadership is getting sharper in our organisation, we’re talking more about it and we’re trying to practise it more and so I began thinking about doing a PhD in this area of conversational leadership. And so something in the area of conversational leadership as an effective methodology to increase the quality of leadership decisions. That space, of how do we use this to enable things to be better for all stakeholders, for the staff, for other stakeholders outside, for leaders, how could conversational leadership be a tool to make it better? So, yeah, I’m just in the process of starting that journey at the moment.

Kate: Really interesting subject there for your PhD, especially as one of the critiques of conversational leadership from people is, “It’s just talk. When do we actually make a decision?”. So I love that you’re planning to look at how we can use it to improve our decision-making. Can you share a little bit about your thoughts there? 

Jason: Yes, I think this very thing of, how do we make conversational leadership into something that actually is shaping and is moving somewhere is a critique that I’ve heard too. That people are like, “Well you can just talk and talk and that’s fine, but is that really a way of doing leadership? Is that really a way of actually moving us somewhere?”. That’s why I chose this particular area of research because I think there are ways that we can work on that. I’d love to be able to have some data to say actually, here’s some ideas and here’s some basis from research that says yes, it’s an effective way of actually doing leadership better. It’s more, a quality outcome can arise from conversational leadership. 

Nelis: I loved your earlier comment, Jason, where you said “making meaning together”. I think that’s what you said, and I’m just taken by that comment because that is, I think, the core of what conversational leadership is about in many ways, in a very pithy way. Have you seen that happen in practice? So, you talk about that desire that in your Master’s research came out. Have you seen that happening in practice? That meaning-making together? 

Jason: One of the ways I’ve seen meaning-making happen together is in the Area in which I worked. The various department heads, I would in the past ask for reports to be sent in, it might be a regular report about activity, measuring something, indicators. In the past it would be a report I’d ask for, might be a one or two-page report. And you get the data of what’s going on. But more recently, I’ve been asking for a conversation around those with each of the department heads and sometimes part of their team. And so each time there’s a reporting cycle, we’ve not only received, we do receive a written report, but it’s quite brief, and then by inviting a conversation and setting up a series of conversations with different department heads and their teams, you really begin to get not only why the data’s there, but what’s behind the data, the value behind that as well. And you can kind of share together, on “”hy did you report that? And what do you think happened to lead to that going on?”. And you’re kind of creating understanding together. And both the department and myself, we’re learning, we’re both learning something, both able to contribute, it’s so much more meaningful than just receiving a piece of paper and going, “Oh, that’s, that looks good.” You could write a half page response but you’re still not really getting to what’s behind that. And how can we understand that in an even greater extent through the conversation of exchanging ideas. That’s one way of something going from the very almost, one directional space of just a report being submitted, to allowing it to be a starting place, to create a whole nother level of meaning, which happens together. 

Kate: Yes, we’ve often talked about the generative elements of conversational leadership before. It opens up space to go in new directions, whereas a report would be a very static thing: “Here’s what’s happened”. Perhaps, “Here’s why”. When you have a conversation together, you know, as you say you can dig deeper and look at why things happen, but also you can spark off, novelty, new thoughts, new directions. And it becomes a whole different experience with a lot more generative energy in it. I love that. That’s really exciting to hear. 

Jason: Yeah, I’ve found it’s both more interesting for the participants and it does generate these new ideas just as you described. And so you go away going, “Huh, there’s new things we can do just because we had that conversation”. They might not have percolated without having this catalyst of a conversation about it, to actually create these new ideas.

Kate: And you might not have arrived at the end of that meeting with definite decisions or action items, but there’s those things percolating which will then go on to make a difference and lead to new things. And it’s that tension, isn’t it, we’ve talked about before, between making a decision and saying, “This is the way we’re going to go”, and leaving space for things to grow, that are in effect a decision. You take a step in a certain direction because of the conversation and that in itself is a decision. It’s just not a decision that we write on paper and highlight and, you know, share with others or write a memo about, but it’s still a decision. And, as I said, looking forward to hearing more about your research in this area.

…

Nelis: It sounds that it also changes the dynamic of your relationship with the people you report to.  It’s less, they are reporting to you to accomplish the goals that you have set. And it’s more, setting goals together, bi-directional empowering. Is that correct? 

Jason: That’s right. I think so. I guess it’s going back to this idea of novelty, that new ideas come up that might end up in the report and then in future conversations – because they were generated here at this point – there’s a certain way of novelty coming out of the conversation, new ideas spring up, and they become then included in future conversations. So it’s, it can become greater and like more and more happens, more and more comes out of a conversation, with lots of threads that come out. Now some of those will continue on, be stronger, other ones, they might not be the things that have the energy in them and they maybe, laid down, laid aside, and that’s okay. 

Nelis: You once told me, Jason, about a staff conference that was planned as a big formal event and that for some reason was not possible, I think it had to do with Covid. Then as a result, you ended up with lots of informal meetings. Can you tell more about that? Because you shared that that was actually quite powerful and that might have even been more effective than the formal conference ever could have been. So, can you share about what happened? And how you see that as an illustration of conversational leadership? 

Jason: So, this little thing called Covid… There was a planned conference of all of the department and quite a lot of people involved. And I travelled to that location. And then it was all looking good. We’d set up all these ways of having a large group conversation with the whole department. And then rules changed, as we are all familiar with that process of, you plan something, then the rules changed. And the gathering size decreased and actually, stepped down over a couple of days. It ended up being you could only meet in quite a small group. And so just thinking, “Oh, wow, what do you do in a situation like this when you have all these really creative conversations with large groups planned and then it just isn’t possible?”. And so we kind of switched and said, “Well, the people are here. The people are gathered in some form. They can’t all be in one space altogether, but people are around. Could we have just very small conversations instead, the same kind of topics, thinking about change, thinking about what’s next, thinking about goals. Things like that. Can we have those same conversations but just in very much smaller groups and do it in lots of different iterations?”. And so we did that and it was interesting because each time we had just a small group conversation in this iterative process, we would learn that… there’s a little group, I think it was only two of us that went from from small group to small group, kind of bringing some of the learning from one group to the next group and learning about the process as we did it. And so changing slightly because it was this two-way conversation. Not only were we asking questions and receiving responses, but we’re both learning together, all the participants learning together. 

Kate: Sounds a bit like a World Cafe, but done not simultaneously, but done sequentially. And in fact, if you’re taking what you’re hearing from one group on to the next. Interesting. 

Jason: Yeah. We weren’t taking everything. We were letting each group discover for themselves. But we were taking some of the process learnings like, “Oh, we wouldn’t do that again”. “That’s not a good way to elicit questions or to get good responses”. And then redefining some of the things we were doing because we learnt that that’s not a good way to engage people. So it was a little bit like that, we were bringing some of the learnings, certainly the process learnings, to each group, but in the end it was a much, probably a more powerful experience of learning together than it would have been had it been the large group that we had originally planned. So that was a really interesting learning, that these small conversations could be as effective as a large conversation that we might hope for. 

Kate: Yeah. If you think about that, people’s level of engagement in small groups is much more focused. In a big group you can kind of switch off – especially when it’s a couple of hundred people – you switch off and just let the usual people speak. Whereas if you’re in smaller groups, you feel more inclined to speak up, it’s not quite so nerve wracking to speak in a small group than if you’re standing up at a microphone. That’s really interesting. And that releases a whole different level of discussion and thinking and creativity. 

Jason: Yeah, a lot more intimate conversation because you’re in these quite small groups and you can share more deeply from your own lived experience. And so I think much more meaningful all around really. 

Nelis: How did you come up with conclusions out of that process? Did you end up with formal decisions or was the sense that the conversations themselves were the impacts that you were looking for? How did it land in some way? 

Jason: I think both. So the conversations themselves and the generative capacity of those conversations, of people thinking of new things and engaging in the topics in a different way than they had before. That in itself was of great value. But there were also some outcomes that through the various conversations, there was some synthesis of those inputs that actually came to some conclusion as well, so you can across all the conversations: “This is what all the different iterations said, in a synthesised form”. So there was some output like that but there was also this value of we’ve engaged together, we’ve been creating some meaning together, we’ve had these small group conversations, which were just very powerful. 

Kate: So, is there anything else that you’d like to share with us, that you’ve been doing, differently to traditional leadership models? 

Jason: There’s another way we’ve been using conversational leadership. In a sense where the topics could be quite a motive or deeply held. Where there’s conflict, really, among a group. And so there’s a way of using conversational leadership, where over a period of time, you can create some space and a feeling of safety in the group and being able to share and really listen. The key is to listen carefully to what each other is saying. And over a period of time through that listening carefully and honouring each of the participants by listening carefully to their perspective and what they had to say. Being able to sit with those different stories and different voices and kind of make meaning as a group together to decide on a particular outcome. So it’s another way of using conversational leadership that allows that space and it’s more of a, it’s a longer process, I guess, that would be the difference. And you’re also recognizing that there’s some tricky things going on, there’s some deeply held things happening, things that people hold. And so giving space and creating safety so people can share those and bring those. And, as in a Christian group, we also say that we’re listening carefully to God in that process. So not only listening to each other but we would say that we’re listening to God so that the process of listening to one another and listening to God together can bring us to an outcome, which might be quite different than if we just had a quick conversation or made a quick decision. So this process of discernment through conversation is another way that we’ve been using conversational leadership. 

Kate: We’ve done similar discernment processes, as a leadership team, haven’t we Nelis? It really takes you into a different kind of space, when you stop and you say, okay, we’re you know, we, we’ve approached this from sort of a businesslike way and a very intellectual, cognitive way. Now, we want to step back and we want to acknowledge our emotions, acknowledge all the different influences, dig deeper and see what are the values? And then just take some time to sort of give all that up and wait and reflect. And as you say as a faith-based organisation, we value listening to God. And actually there’s something incredibly powerful in doing that as a leadership team and just stopping and saying we don’t have all the perspectives. Obviously, conversational leadership says we need the perspectives of all and as we’ve said in previous episodes, for us as a faith-based organisation that includes making space for God to speak in. And others who don’t share the same faith as us but acknowledge the value of spirituality in their work, will – I think – recognize this element as well. And recognize that we haven’t got all that it takes in our brains. 

Jason: I think it can be quite a remarkable process to go down. What you said there, that not only are we making space to listen to others but also we are really recognizing that we don’t have the answers and we need one another and there’s something quite powerful in that. 

Nelis: I just finished yesterday, a book by Barry Oshery,  Seeing Systems and one of his points is embracing uncertainty. And in some ways, realising that the opposing view and your view are both needed to maintain balance and to keep a robust system in place. Otherwise you just get fragmentation, in ossified positions, and things like that. I think what you’re describing is a way, is one of the ways to break out of that, to step back and say, why do we feel the way we feel and embrace each other’s position and get to a sense of shared understanding, which is, I think incredibly powerful and important to maintain a robust system. 

Kate: And as a really kind of unique thing in a discernment process, the stage that is often referred to as “indifference”. You know, which when I first encountered this, I was like, “How can I be indifferent to this? You know, I’m fully invested in this!”. I think the essence of it is being willing to give up that investment, that commitment to a certain angle, the kind of obsession with the outcome you want and just say, you know, I may not be right here and I need to be willing to just… 

Nelis: I’m aware that there are other positions that are just as valid and being willing to do what’s right instead of doing what I want. 

Jason: That’s right. When we sometimes we hear the word indifference, we think, “I don’t care”, but we’re not talking about that meaning of “I don’t  care”, we’re saying “I can lay down my deeply held conviction on this topic because I want what’s best for the group”. But I think that’s the essence of conversation leadership, isn’t it? That we are able to lay down this idea that I can do it by myself and we’re embracing others and inviting them into the process? I think that’s what conversational leadership is. 

…

Nelis: I think you just gave a wonderful definition. Well with that, I’d almost say we should stop, but we had a few more thoughts. It’s not all rosy and perfect and everything always works. So, two questions? Have you run into struggles, where it didn’t work, and how have you sought to overcome those? 

Jason: Definitely, I would say that it’s two things in my mind where it’s a struggle. One is just the busyness and the pace in leadership. There’s so much going on, there’s so much call on our time, there’s so many meetings to line up, all the things that we all know about as leaders, all happening. And so, how do we create the space required to really have a meaningful conversation with others? And so I think that’s the first thing, is in this tyranny of the urgent, how do we actually create the space? Because it needs space. We can’t invite others into a meaningful conversation if we only have a few minutes to give to it, it does require space. And so that’s the first thing, I think, is actually being able to put value to this sufficiently that we can say, it needs the space that it needs to be able to have this important conversation with others.

Nelis: And that’s kind of countercultural for us, isn’t it? Because we tend to want to do things quickly, rush on, and so yeah, we … to be able to step back and say, let’s create room, for this is important. 

Kate: Accepting that we might have to slow down in order to make progress is hard. And also, how do you find that space when you’re meeting by Zoom? Because we have these very structured meetings, an hour and then we go on to another meeting and it’s that lingering between meetings, it’s the mealtime conversations, it’s the empty spaces. That’s where the real stuff happens. So we’ve still got to work at creating that space, I think, in this digital way of working. 

Jason. Yeah, exactly. I think we all struggle with that, this hour is this meeting, the next half hour’s that meeting. How do you really create a space in that Zoom or Skype or whatever technology you’re using, in that environment, how do you create the space? So I think we have to be very intentional about that, of paying attention to the agendas we’re creating and in making some space for things, just generating conversation together. And keeping time in the meeting, or that, But it’s, it’s not as easy as face-to-face conversation where you can be a bit more relaxed. So I think you have to, I think it can be done, but it takes more attention to be able to do it. Once you’ve got the space, whether you’re trying to do it virtually or whether you’re trying to do it in person, the next thing is actually to invite conversation, so that you’ve got that creative generative conversation of really listening to each other, where the different participants can actually contribute. Because you can create the space and kill it by starting a monologue or asking questions in such a way as you know, there’s shame or… there’s all these ways that we kill conversation. So not only create the space but then really create that trust by starting the creative and generative conversations, which we want to listen, we value the listening, listening to others.

Nelis: It’s neat, the way you’re saying that. That it requires practice and skill and it’s an ongoing learning process, just creating space is not enough. It’s something that we all need to learn how to do that, to not kill the conversation. And I catch myself doing it wrong. I see it around me happening all the time with all the best intentions of the world. Space has been created and conversations killed.

Jason: Yes. And there’s so much that goes into that. There’s probably a whole research degree here about how we show interest in the other person and in other participants, the body language, the eye contact, the facial expression. All of that would go into this thing, which is creating a place of safety to value and to listen to others. 

Nelis: I think there’s a third one that you wanted to mention?

Jason: The other part of it is that the idea of conversational leadership is that it is leadership. That we’re not just having a conversation. You know, we’re not just talking about the weather and that was interesting. Or we’re learning something new and that was also fun. But actually there’s an element of leadership to this which means that the process is going somewhere and that might be obvious soon or it might not. It might take some time, might take a struggle. And you guys have talked about this before in your podcast, about how that you’re struggling, you’re struggling, you’re trying to get through this period of confusion to get to the point of meaning making. I was reading something recently, talked about a similar concept, they called it the ‘edge of chaos’. You go to the edge of chaos and you kind of drag it back into some place of meaning. And that’s a critical part of this process too. Is that not only creating space and in allowing the generative conversation, the creative conversation to happen. But actually, it does need to go somewhere or people can just get frustrated that we’ve had a great conversation. And then next month, we meet again, have another great conversation. But what, what’s going on? Where’s the process leading us? And so there has to be over a period of time, there has to be some movement, that people can see that meaning is being made and that is shaping the direction. 

Kate: I love that you mentioned the edge of chaos. I think this is one of the things that really appealed to me when I was doing my master studies and encountered applications of complexity science to leadership. It was talking about the place that novelty created is exactly that edge of chaos, because that’s where everything’s kind of up for grabs. That’s where things change. I think that’s why we need to pay attention to who we include in our conversations. If they’re all the usual suspects we’re not going to get the diversity we need, we’re not going to get the new perspectives. So you bring in the people on the fringes, but you also have to tolerate that chaos for a little bit. You can’t have productive conversations if you just stay in the safe zones of what we know and believe and do already. You have to have safety and freedom to ask the wild questions, the things, you know, to tread on sacred ground and raise those things that we don’t really talk about and create that chaos and live in that place of uncertainty and chaos and awkwardness and just be okay with it. And as leaders, that’s hard. And I know that leaders from hierarchical cultures have said that’s really hard for them because you’re expected to know and give direction. 

Nelis: But you also need to drag it back. You have that tension. 

Jason: You can’t live there can you? It wears people out, that ambiguity all the time. Although some of us like ambiguity too, we can’t stay there as an organisation. You have to bring it back into shape and actually have some process leading somewhere and I think that’s this other element, that conversation leadership honours people, invites the participation and the meaning-making together. And this chaos, then leads over time to some new things and some good things. And this is the progress. This is the movement that we want to see.

Kate: And leaders have a special role to play in, both in framing the conversation, helping it to keep going in productive directions, and then helping people to reach some conclusions without pinning it down and killing it. Allowing space for the conversations to keep generating new things, as I think we were talking about at the beginning, we’ve come full circle. 

Nelis: And that might be a good time to actually come to an end. Jason, is there anything that we haven’t covered that you would like to sort of bring out, or some concluding comments? 

Jason: I think one thing is, is just that from my perspective experimenting with conversational leadership has been a really rich experience. So people who might be listening to this and going, it sounds a little bit uncomfortable, sounds a bit strange. I would really encourage you to embrace this and to experiment with conversational leadership because I think that in the process we ourselves are learning. We’re becoming better leaders in the process by including others in it. It has the potential to make better decisions. And yeah, as we were saying before, there’s something of that, humility, recognizing we haven’t got all the answers, that is also character-building in us. And so, I think that people who are a little bit cautious, of “Should we give this a try? What would it look like”? I’d encourage you to try and experiment with conversational leadership in your sphere of influence.

Nelis:  And I couldn’t agree more and that’s one of the reasons we’re doing this podcast, is for people to hear the stories, to get a sense of “Yes, I could try this and start to experiment”. So, I’m excited about you doing that. And I’m also looking forward, we are looking forward, Jason, to what will come out of your research, and learning stuff that will contribute also, in academia, on this topic, because, I feel that there is still a whole world to be won, also at the research level. So I’m excited that you’re doing that. 

Jason: Yeah. Thanks very much. It’s been a delight to join you for this podcast. 

Kate: Thanks Jason. And as always, if our listeners have any questions or comments, thoughts to add to the conversation, head over to leadinginconversation.net and let’s keep talking. Thanks guys.

Episode 4

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Leading in Conversations
Leading in Conversations
Leading in Conversation – Episode 4
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Show Notes

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Transcript

Nelis: We are together to discuss an event that happened where we put conversational leadership in practice. I’m excited to be here together with Kate, of course, but also with Clare, Johnstone and Samantha. So, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us! 

We would like to explore what happened in this event to see how conversational leadership works in a large group setting. It’s fresh in our minds and we want to explore different ideas. We want to go through first, maybe about vulnerability, creating containers, creating safe spaces. So, do any of you want to share how you felt that went? How did you experience that? 

Creating safe spaces for conversation

Johnstone: I think I really experienced the fact that the space was quite safe for me to express myself and I say so because you look at different things. First of all, is how the room is arranged, you know, how it’s structured, both the tables that were up front and the tables that were at the back. I like sitting at the back, I came and sat at the back and nobody came and said “Move” or whatever and so I just felt like I was comfortable. And then I looked at the colleagues, that we know each other, and right from the beginning, there was just this, you know, friendly atmosphere that people felt like, yeah, we can talk and laugh and be invited to this big conversation. 

Kate: So even though we were at a work event, it felt like we were amongst friends. I thought it felt very relaxed and comfortable. Did that feel the same way for others? 

Clare: Yes, it certainly did for me. I mean, most of the people in the room I already knew before, but it does make me wonder about the people that didn’t know as many people or maybe didn’t know most of the people there. So how do we keep working on thinking not just of those that were so happy to see each other after not seeing each other for a time but those that may not have.

Kate: Samantha, this was your first time with this particular group of leaders. How was that for you? Did you feel you could participate and speak up? 

Nelis: Actually, just for our audience, Samantha is from a minority background, she was one of the youngest people in the group. So, somewhat different from some of the others. You’ve often felt excluded in other groups. What made you feel at home, because you said, you felt at home. What concretely made you feel at home? 

Samantha: Yes. I was trying to reflect on that because I was pretty intimidated before coming, with the calibre of people that were going to be here and that I didn’t know almost anybody or only had seen their names in the organisational chart maybe. So I wasn’t sure how it would be but I think I was so impressed with the warmth and… when we would have a group conversation, the response, even to different people’s voices. When there were groups, that we were able to choose where to go was helpful. Honestly, I think in the beginning I looked a little bit for groups of people that I might feel more comfortable talking with even above the topic because there were several topics that I’d be interested in and that would end up being my deciding factor because if a space isn’t safe because of who else is there, then that’s that’s not necessarily going to be a very comfortable conversation, even if it’s a topic that you’re really interested in. 

Johnstone: I just wanted to add to that. I felt like the organisers had an intentionality to invite people to a safe space for conversation and to make it known to the participants that really we want this to be a free environment. And then beyond internationality there was some demonstration that that was actually happening. This is the first meeting I’ve been to and I’ve not been assigned a table group! See a lot of times we want to be intentional and say “So and so cannot sit with so and so because they think in a similar way”, or something like that, but here I was told you could just choose any table group, go sit there. You could choose whichever topic you want to talk to and the break time is going to be “fuzzy”. And you know, all those kinds of things that, you know, the leaders, conversation leaders were talking about really created that what I believe is a safe space for me to express myself to the issues that I believe are important. 

Clare: Well, I wonder how this fit in with the process of storytelling, and that, as people began to tell their authentic story and share those and you hear that, it makes you feel freer to tell your perspective and your authentic story for the topics, because some of them were pretty difficult, the topics that we grappled with. And so to me, that’s part of creating that vulnerability, if others model that vulnerability by talking about their personal stories and ups and downs, challenges, I think that helps those that may not feel as comfortable become more comfortable and relaxed. 

Nelis: We talked a little bit about room layout. Maybe for our listeners it’s interesting to hear how we had laid it out. We had a semicircle two-three rows deep where we really sat together like in a 40 people amphitheatre, where we were really talking to each other and I think that worked reasonably well. And then we have nicely decorated tables at the back where somebody had put a lot of effort into actually making it feel like a homey table. And I think those little touches make a difference. Any thoughts about the room layout, what you felt coming in, or thoughts you had? 

Clare: We were blessed with the room, which is light. It has lots of windows. And so, the beauty of the setting was clear. You didn’t feel claustrophobic at all. 

Kate: That’s really important, I think, for open conversations and free-flowing discussions.

Sam: I think too, though it was a big space, dividing the room up in those different sections also made it feel not too big, where you now are like lost in the space, but that you could turn your attention to one space and be in that in one kind of atmosphere and then switch to the tables and be in a different mind space and interactive space. And that allowed that flexibility for different ways of interacting –  different modes almost. And then later when people talked, then they could spread out to different areas.

Johnstone: Somebody has said that we know that there is a lot that can be achieved in Zoom meetings, so what do you do with physical meetings? And I found that comment  very helpful that physical meetings could be an opportunity for greater leadership building, greater ability to just converse as friends and dig deeper into topics, so that you don’t have to feel like, you know, this thing I can only say during break time. You can actually say what you want to say in the room. I think I found that to be helpful as well.

Using stories

Nelis: So people shared their own stories, and we wanted to talk about the storytelling in this event that was done both formally and informally, I think. So, what are your thoughts about how that was done? Maybe Kate, you can describe how we intended to use stories and then see how it was experienced?

Kate: Yes, so we used a couple of stories at the beginning of each of the sessions on the first two days and beforehand, we’d asked everyone coming to submit a story, no longer than a page, about something related to our topic, which was about shifting mental models in our organisation, looking at the mental models that are holding us back from making progress towards our vision. It was fascinating to see all of those coming in and we went through them and selected a few for each session that had some really clear mental models in them that provided a starting place for discussions. Really, we were looking for stories that had generative potential for discussion. And I think that worked really well, but I’d like to hear what the rest of you think about that. 

Clare: I thought that the stories that you chose were really good examples that helped us to think about the issue of mental models. And you know, some challenging, some positive elements, some difficult elements, but I think they really exemplified thinking through the mental model issues that we all have and you intentionally chose a variety of stories that helped us see those things. And not too many of them. Just having eight over those two days was good.

Johnstone: Over time I have realised that I communicate using stories. Stories can give us a lot to learn about certain situations. And so these were things that have happened, so they’re not like just stories that have been imagined. And how do we learn from them? And it was interesting when I was telling my first or even my second story, I could see the emotion in the room. I could see that, you know, when people get to a point of saying “Oh..” or whatever it is, you could feel like the story is communicating. 

Kate: How do you think stories work differently from a presentation? At a lot of our previous events we’ve had presentations with PowerPoints. How did you see stories playing out differently? Because this is something we’re experimenting with, obviously. 

Johnstone: Well, like Claire said, you know, the stories were well chosen beforehand, the ones that we used in the meeting. But I think the stories remove the whole conference from an academic sort of pursuit to something more real, something more natural. It gives us an opportunity to introspect. You know, I once read a story called ‘The Government Inspector’. At the end of it they say, somebody says, “Who are you laughing at? You’re laughing at yourselves.” Stories allow us to do those types of things, to laugh at ourselves, and then to change our course because we can actually see in retrospect, you know, how things can be different.

Kate: They sort of allow us to step outside of ourselves and look at ourselves, or look at the situation from a little bit of a distance don’t they, and you experience it differently from that perspective. 

Clare: They sort of naturally have a sort of a moral to ourselves that you’ve thought about this. And it’s like “Oh…” and it’s not often explicit. It’s usually implicit but because it’s a real story of some things that are really true, it puts the principles in an applied context and I think that really helps people to grapple with the principles in an applied situation. 

Johnstone: I wanted just to add that it was really good for the organisers, to flow with my story without asking me to say more about it. I was giving a real story about a real context, but I didn’t want that place to be shamed, or something like that. And so I chose to omit names of the country, I chose to omit names of people, and I just said the story. You know, after the meeting some people asked… and I still felt, I just think I want that to remain private. You can say the story without really shaming people and that was part of this that really was good.

Kate: That’s really important. And I don’t think it detracted at all from the value of that story that you shared, at all. 

Open Space Technology

Nelis: What we did at the end of those sets of two stories, we then as a group in that semicircle, we talked about – and we had flipcharts – what are the insights we are taking from this and what are the questions that this raises? We didn’t try to answer all the questions. We just raised them and said, what are the questions that we need to wrestle with? I think I was actually quite powerful. I was initially tempted, “Let me try to answer questions”. But no, let us sit with that together and those 20 minutes of looking at insights together as a group is so different from the facilitation team or a synthesis team trying to come to conclusions in a small group. This is all of us wrestling together and I was just amazed how powerfully that worked. Samantha, you were one of the scribes. I mean, we couldn’t keep up with the input that came! 

Samantha: I think that was a wonderful time, also building safety and respect and for me, getting to know different voices without having to talk to each one, you know. In that kind of arena, you start to hear different perspectives and get a feel for who it is that you might want to follow up with later and talk to, who have similar things that they’re thinking about or wrestling with. To have – again – it grounded in the stories that were just told that we have something to start from that is personal and were told from the voices of those who are in those situations, or saw those situations happening in their context, was really powerful for us to be able to then mull over it in a very respectful way. And I think the moderation also helped that. I think the way that you and the other moderator did it was very affirming of everyone’s voices. 

Nelis: I think that’s a key part. You always are affirming, “Yes, this perspective is an insight we need to hear”. 

Kate: So, one of the tools we used during this process was Open Space Technology and, Nelis, you led that part. Would you perhaps describe what we did there?

Clare: That’s a funny term. I’ve never heard that term before. 

Nelis: Yes. I love the term ‘technology’ because it is so low-tech, but Open Space Technology has a whole set of principles behind it, and those who are interested can look that up. We’ll provide the link in the show notes. But we didn’t introduce all of that. We asked people to basically come forward, to put a topic on a piece of paper and then be ready to be part of a group to talk about it. They could come up with any topic, but often it was grounded in the stories we had talked about before. Then we ask people to basically go to the group that they wanted to, it could be two people, it could be 10 people, feel free to move around between groups. And I was a bit nervous, I mean, are we going to get people to come forward? Will the topic be relevant? Will people feel comfortable moving around, but they did. 

Kate: Yes, it really worked. I’ve never seen that tool being used before. 

Johnstone: I just wanted to say, I never knew that whatever you are doing had a name. What I thought we were doing was basically to move from a point of a group having internalised the stories and talked about the insights and questions and we were just going to a space where you pursued what you wanted to pursue, alongside the things that had been discussed. And so I didn’t even know that you guys were using something that is absolutely researched and written. But having said that I just wanted to say that that was a very, very effective way of doing things. 1) I am enthusiastic to discuss something that is so important to me. And so, when people went forward and they picked topics that were important and I had the freedom to choose which group to attend to, I went to places where I felt like, a) I had a contribution or b) that this is an issue that I needed to grapple with. I went there to listen to other people that are grappling with the same issue. But at the same time, I went there to tell them that I have a perspective to offer, you know, and I could be able to do that in a very effective way. And as I just found that to be a very helpful part of this process which we’ve just had this week. 

Samantha: I think there’s also elements of having the vulnerability and creating safe spaces in this as well as because you’re being vulnerable to say, “I’m not controlling what’s happening now, the agenda, and I’m letting the participants take hold and ownership of this as well”. So you would stand there awkwardly in the beginning and that actually gives us a chance as a community also to respond to that vulnerability and to say, you know, “I don’t want the person up front to feel alone”. I will step up and also be brave and contribute something. And then you do know it’s going to be relevant for this group because someone has been vulnerable in saying, “Here’s what I’m interested in. I’d like to talk about that. So would anyone like to join me?”. And then they went vulnerably to sit at a table and invite people into that space. And that was another thing, you could see certain tables would get filled up. The ones that were empty would also be a welcoming space for someone to say “I don’t want those people to feel as alone and I’ll join them”. And so I think that there’s a lot of deep relational aspects to this Open Space Technology.

Johnstone: One of the things that I found intriguing is that… there was a time when I was hosting a conversation. I wrote something on the paper and we had six or so people come to my table. But they all came to approach that topic from a slightly different angle. The good thing is that when we talked about it, how quickly we arrived at the core, the commonality, that was making us want to discuss this. And so one of the things that we did was to really redefine the issue. So we ended up even talking a little bit about the topic and tweaking what I had written, to the level that everybody was now comfortable to make a contribution to that. And when they got comfortable, then they started making a contribution to that, there’s just a lot of gold to mine out of what we were saying. 

Kate: I think we touched on this in one of the previous episodes didn’t we, Nelis? That, sometimes you’ll frame a discussion with what you think is the topic. Then once you get under way, the real issue emerges and it sounds like that was part of the experience for you: that you’d labelled it at one level, but actually, when everyone got talking you realised what the real core issue was. That’s really interesting.

Nelis: I find it interesting that it is so different from predefined questions. So, group processes almost always have a set of three or four questions that you’re supposed to answer and they’re always frustrating, is my experience. Always! And somehow people don’t need the questions. You’ve got a topic and people start to talk and start digging and that free-flowing element actually is so much richer. 

Samantha: I think that the modality of those Open Space technology allows it. I mean, from what I’ve read it’s very intentional that people come with their own question or their own ideas. It’s not like other conversations that are so forced, to say “You have to talk about this topic and you have to talk about it in these ways”. So then that allows people to come with their own input. And it also creates a very natural flat structure where there is no expert necessarily, everyone is the expert in that situation. So there is a little bit more openness.

Nelis: What I found fascinating is no group had an appointed facilitator and you didn’t need one!

Johnstone: You know, we came in from different countries and so time differences were a factor. In many meetings that I have been to, in the afternoon you see people standing, you know, on the walls, fighting sleep. My own observation of this meeting is that it was animated throughout. Nevermind we met from 8 to 6, and that’s a long time to be meeting, to be talking for that matter. But there is some seamless flow that seems to have happened that kept the group so well engaged, you know, throughout this conversation. 

Sense making

Nelis: Let’s move on to our last topic because we’ve had lots of conversation but there is an element of sense-making together. You want to draw things to conclusions. We did that at the end of each day to gather together and say “What are we learning?”. As a Christian organization asking ourselves, “What is God telling us through all this?”. Any thoughts about that sense-making? And the importance of that? And maybe Clare, you’ve got some thoughts about even relating that to urgency. So that this isn’t just talk. 

Clare: Yes, well, one of the things that I was wondering about in this process, since we are focusing on the conversational leadership method of making change—which is particularly useful for complex, adaptive changes—but sometimes even within those, there’s some urgent things that need to be dealt with. Conversational leadership by nature is going to lend itself to gradual emerging solutions. And so it takes time. But within that, there may be some things that if you don’t pay attention to this now you’re not going to have time to finish this conversation because they really are existential threats, for example. So how to balance those two things? I felt like it would be good before we close to help people remember that this is really an important model, but it’s not the only model. You have to be able to discern what kinds of change processes are appropriate for this particular issue you’re dealing with: is it adaptive, is it tactical? What does that mean? 

Samantha: Can you remind me – or I guess maybe reveal to me – which different parts during the days were planned to be the intentional sense-making portions, and maybe describe what those different activities were like.

Nelis: There were smaller and larger parts of that. After each block, we always – after the group conversations – got together asked ourselves “What is emerging?” So that was part of the collective sense-making process. And at the end of each day, we got together in the big semicircle and then really started to dig a bit deeper and I was always giving more time to ask ourselves, “So what are our conclusions? What do we want to sit with and take home?”. So that is also part of that sense-making. And then there’s also an individual sense-making which was planned, that we asked every participant to work on two mental model shifts that they’re going to be held accountable to. That’s very concrete, action-oriented: “What are the steps you can take to address this? And what are you going to work on with your supervisor?” That starts to address that urgency part. There is something that needs to be done at the end. And that was also a planned sense-making part. 

Johnstone: You know, personally, my perspective has been, you know, some of the mental models, we were talking about are things that I have grappled with over time, and I could easily see the group sense-making process. I struggled a bit with the personal sense-making process. The group sense-making processes, yes, these are things that we need to be talking about as a group. These are things that we need to dig in and we need to get to some conclusions about some of these things. But then I think when that was mixed by outside perspective – somebody came and clearly offered a presentation. And I must say that he had been listening to us throughout the week and he was very intentional in doing so. I believe that his presentation really responded so well to some of the things that we were trying to grapple with. All of a sudden I just felt like being ripped apart and just getting deep into things that personally apply to me. It was at that point for me in the conference that I started saying “Yeah, stop thinking about others out there. And think about what are you going to do about these things?” And that was very, very powerful for me. 

Nelis: We talk about disruption in our podcast often. You need new insights from somebody outside the system often, to create novelty, and I think that outside voice of somebody who’s in a different organisation can be very powerful and it was.

Kate: Definitely, so the first two days we were sharing our own stories, we were a little bit introspective in a sense, but I think the stories helped us to dig down and unpack what are these unhelpful mental models that we need to address as an organisation. And then, the third day, we had our external speaker come and talk on a topic that had actually emerged as a major topic from our previous two days. 

Nelis: We didn’t know that!

Kate: We actually didn’t know that that topic would emerge so strongly through those first two days when we invited him, but actually he was able to bring novelty into the discussion and from outside, from his own experience, from his academic research, and his own organisation. And I think that worked really, really well, and we can’t take the credit for organising that, it just happened. 

Clare: Well, for me, what I found that gave us such a way to grapple with it is that he started with a lot of stories, personal stories, his own experience, very vulnerable. And so these very topics that we were grappling with, he modelled. I don’t think you told him that’s the way you should present but he used the very powerful thing of helping us to see his own personal journey, as well as some insights from his experiences and his journey as a leader that really brought a lot of insight. 

Kate: Now, what’s interesting is that he and I were on the same Masters study program where we both encountered conversational leadership a couple of years back. We’ve both been experimenting and talking about that since. So I think he was already coming from that perspective that stories, narratives, that’s what changes things. That’s what seeds change.

Johnstone: Another thing that I believe that led to concretisation of thoughts is the self correction that I saw happen in the room. So somebody would give a story and then there would be that time for responses. At some point, there is a story that was given around a certain mental model and the way the room responded to the story, you didn’t need a leader to be the one saying “This is wrong”, this needs to be done differently. As peers of that person, we were able to sort of bring light and our own contribution to that. And sense-making happens at that particular point, because sometimes you feel like “I’m in this part of the world. I am so unique. There are no other people that have my situation”, but you come and bring it to such a diverse group and then people just start telling you how these things could be and that can be very powerful. 

Samantha: Yeah. I was thinking, maybe you said it in the very beginning, about this conversational model, is how it was like a flock of birds moving, I was thinking about how that is. It’s like when you study these flocks of birds, they don’t have some lead, like lead-bird. Flocks that move in that way, they all kind of draft next to each other,  they calibrate according to what birds are around them. So, I think in that we found a way of overlapping with each other, complementing each other, taking our own, internal convictions and personal insights and tuning them to each other, attuning to each other. So we were able to adjust to one another and therefore start to really have a sense of collaboration and unity that I think  by yesterday morning, when we had that really incredible session there was such a sense that we were hearing from each other. And again, for our faith, that we had a sense that God was speaking to us in a unified way, that we could hear, a voice that we could hear and it was, it was drawing us in a certain direction. 

Clare: To me, what was interesting is the topics that ended up being in focus in his discussion with us were really difficult topics, really painful topics, things that are difficult to change. Heart level change is needed. And those tend to be ones which become divisive in other processes. People stake their perspective because they feel maybe accused or they feel “Now you just don’t understand”, and become defensive. Whereas I didn’t sense that at all in these difficult topics. I’m sure that there are people at various levels of struggling, but in terms of how we process those things together, I think there was a real openness to say, “We all have something to learn here”.

Johnstone: I feel like this week has been like a journey. I can compare it to a journey. And in a journey we have people who can drive, walk or run faster than others. And as we started exploring stories, I feel like there are people who, you know, got there earlier. First day they would feel like “This is my mental model, this is what I want to work on. And they were starting to make conclusions for themselves. Other people arrived there the second day. Some people like me arrived on the third day. But the important thing is that the whole room arrived by yesterday and that is very, very important. I don’t know whether this is something that you can orchestrate or whether in planning and doing stuff you also have to trust God, to use the resources that you have to his own glory. Because I just think that I have seen such huge impact and huge transformation in our attitudes, in our thoughts, and as you speak to different people, people can say, “You know, I never put a name to this. Now I have a name to it”. You know, I’ve had a lot of testimonies that have been coming out of this meeting, and I’m just wondering, you know, it’s a journey, different people arriving there at different times, but definitely seeing the hand of God, as well, in what was happening here this week. 

Nelis: Thank you. I think we need to come to a conclusion. 

Kate: It’s been great to hear your experiences. We need our listeners to know that we didn’t pay them to say these nice things, that we didn’t prime them in any way or prepare them, they just shared from the heart. We’re very grateful to Clare and Johnstone and Samantha for giving us this time. Thank you.

Nelis: And I’d like to invite our listeners to join the conversation as well. Feel free to put your comments in the website and let’s journey together.

Kate: Thank you for listening.